Taking the farm safety message to toddlers
ONE young rural entrepreneur is hoping to add her name to the list of leading companies who got their big break on The Late Late Show.
Anna Carmody (24), from Tullamore, Co Offaly says she has emailed the RTÉ Show “millions of times” in hope of gaining a spot on this year’s Late Late Toy Show to promote her farm safety books and playmat, which she has developed under the brand name of Little Red Design Studio.
“I would love to get on the Late Late Toy Show farming section and have a safety talk on the show. I’m really pushing for it. I’ve emailed the show millions of times and have contacted Ryan Tubridy on Instagram. It would be great to have a safety section included in the farm toys because there’s no other toy like this,” says Anna.
While Anna did not grow up on a farm, she lives in the countryside and visited her grandparents’ farm in Co Mayo on a regular basis and always had an interest in farm safety. As part of her final year project during her Product Design degree she decided to focus on a farm safety product and that’s when the idea for her book and playmat came to life.
“I loved the idea of doing something on farm safety. I did some research when developing the product and was shocked at the statistics of young toddlers dying as a result of farm accidents. It’s awful because it destroys families forever,” she says.
“I went to libraries and bookshops and saw that farm books portrayed animals as friendly but when a sheep is with its lamb or if a cow is with its calf they can become very aggressive and could kick or attack a child.”
Anna used montessori teaching approaches and her own flair for product design to develop the Hazard Farm augmented reality book, app and playmat to help children learn about farm dangers through play and interaction.
“Through stories and rhymes and the phonetic named characters Billy and Lilly the book teaches children about different hazards on the farm and the playmat interacts with the book.”
Anna, who works during the week in the shares department of Mercer in Dublin, says she will soon launch the book and app which will be available on Anroid and IOS devices.
Anna took part in the ACORNS Rural Entrepreneurs development programme and says that the initiative gave her a real confidence boost and that she is still in touch with many of the other female business women who she met on the course.
“ACORNS really shaped me and the business. I had no idea what kind of business I wanted when I first started the programme. The monthly round table meetings offered so much business support and emotional support,” she adds.